Posts by Category: Recommended

For a long time now, people have been asking for longer battery life for their mobile phones, but until recently the manufacturers seem to have been more focused on style over substance. But recently we’ve noticed a change from the Android makers, and it’s excellent. These new phones offer around 3 days of operation from a charge, which makes life so much easier. And now there’s a new king of the jungle out there, which offers even more.

We first reported on free software to turn your phone into a remote camera back in 2004 (yes that long, and it was called Mobcam for Symbian). Well time may fly, but that doesn’t mean good ideas disappear. Now there’s a new and much more sophisticated version of the idea out, and it’s great. Camio is a free service which lets you convert any old smartphone (or even a computer webcam) into a motion sensitive security camera.

Everyone’s got an old laptop or desktop PC lying around in an attic or cupboard somewhere. That’s just how it goes. Most of the time, it sits there because it runs like a dog, and no-one can be bothered to fix it, or junk it. But now you have a rather cool way to bring your old machine back to productive life.

Hands up if you’ve ever returned home from shopping only to realize that you’ve forgotten to get something while you were out. Annoying isn’t it? Or how about those times when you wake up thinking you really ought to get a gift or flowers for someone when you get a moment, only to forget instantly and miss the due date. Embarrassing. Well listen up, because there’s now an Android app made especially for you.

Tomorrow, Saturday 28th March 2015, at 8.30pm local time wherever you are, the lights will be switched off all over the world for a symbolic 60 minutes, to mark Earth Hour. Described as a ‘worldwide grassroots movement uniting people to protect the planet‘, and organized by the World Wildlife Fund, it basically gives everyone a chance to demonstrate their concern for the state of our planet in whatever small way they can.

The smartphone market is heading for a huge shock, as the traditional brands find themselves under increasing pressure from some very slick Chinese products which are making their way westwards. The big names like HTC and Samsung are already suffering from slower sales and declining profits, and this trend is going to continue, as lower priced Chinese manufacturers pulverize the established brands on price and features. This new superphone from Honor is a classic example of what we mean.

When it comes down to it, backing up our smartphones is more than just sensible, it’s probably essential. Especially with the risks of loss, breakage or theft, and even upgrading a phone goes so much smoother if you can take your familiar running data with you. And the backup built into Android sucks. So how nice to report on a superb new app which we’ve been using recently to make this process totally painless.

Let’s just get one thing out of the right now, shall we? All those clever folk sneering at the wave of Android TV boxes flooding the market right now need to wipe the smirk off their faces, because these things are here to stay, and they’re getting awesome. For those who’ve just arrived from Mars, these small boxes hook up to your TV via the HDMI socket and deliver games, Internet, and TV entertainment using the WiFi network in your home….

When the Yotaphone people introduced the first Yotaphone back at the beginning of this year the general view was ‘nice idea, shame about the implementation’. Boy how much can change in 9 months. The new Yotaphone 2 , released today is a real stunner, and it’s probably going to change the way we look at and use smartphones for ever.

OK, seriously, what is the matter with hotels? Why on earth do they insist on making you jump through hoops and pay for Internet connections, don’t they realise it’s more important than clean towels most of the time. Well almost. Anyway, if you’re a traveler, we’ve found a product which should hopefully make your life a lot easier all round.

Every so often we get hit in the face with a corker of a product, and we know within seconds this is something we’re going to use a lot from now on. It’s hard to explain what makes those products so compelling, but if we had to dissect it, we would put it down to a) a clearly great implementation of a core function and b) the ability to get it to do what you want instantly, without having to…

We’ve got a small confession to make, we don’t really like home security and automation devices. The ones we’ve looked at in the past have promised much, and in the end delivered more disappointment than anything else. The big problem with most of them is they’re just too darned hard to install, and when you do finally manage to get it all working, there’s typically something which doesn’t do what it’s supposed to, which is very annoying. But now there’s…

Regular readers will know that while we loves us our Firefox browser, we’re always on the lookout for an ultra fast, and functional alternative for those times when we just want to get on there and look something up quickly. Over the years we’ve moved between Chrome, Maxthon and other, but now we’ve found ourselves a new champion. And it’s a doozy.

One of the most awesomest things about owning and using an Android smartphone is the fact that you can customize it to the way you want it – listening iPhone 6 users? – often just by adding a cool few apps. Over time I’ve identified a quartet of apps (all free except for one) which are essential tools to install, and which make things so easy I wonder why Android doesn’t have these features embedded as standard?

OK, let’s get this straight, there are barcode scanners and then there are barcode scanners, know what we mean? For the longest time QR codes and the like have been hovering on the outskirts of mass adoption, but now we reckon they’re just about to become mainstream, and the reason is the tools are getting really good. Not just the scanners, but also the barcode creator tools. And we think we’ve found the best of breed of both types right…